In Person of Interest we talk to the people catching our eye right now about their projects past and present. Next up, we chat with Jay, who cofounded popcorn brand Daadi Snacks with his family but has become internet-famous for his anti-influencer videos.
There’s a standard playbook that most consumer product good (CPG) companies use when launching their company into the marketplace. They might make a few cute reels or TikToks showing the behind-the-scenes process, maybe host an in-person pop-up or two, but most importantly, they send thousands of dollars of product to influencers to help get the word out.
Jay (who prefers to keep his last name off the internet), the 30-something cofounder of Daadi Snacks, decided to burn that playbook to the ground when launching his family’s popcorn company.
Instead of sucking up to influencers, he started calling them out for their over-the-top and ridiculous antics. Parodying their annoying parlance, by opening each video with an “OHMYGODYOUGUYS” or a nasally “Come with me…” before skewering his latest victim, such as the American tourist upset that baristas in Italy refuse to mimic her Dunkin’ coffee order.
With this strategy, Daadi Snacks has amassed 929,000 followers and counting, which has turned Jay into the very thing he spends his time making fun of: an influencer. Or is he a content creator? Surprising for someone who never even had an Instagram account until 2022.
But unlike the folks he skewers, Jay likes to use his powers for good, aiming to be “the Keith Lee of New York City” and shining a light on spots that don’t tend to get attention. We called him up to speak about how his family started Daadi Snacks, the impact of his anti-influencer reels, and if it really has helped him sell any popcorn at the end of the day.
How did your family get into the snack business?
My grandma made this popcorn for our family growing up for as long as I can remember. We had floated the idea of commercializing it and turning it into an actual product, but it was more just like an idea than anything else. When COVID hit, I was working remotely, and we were just looking for ways to stay in touch with my grandparents, my mom, my uncles. I brought it up to them. “Why don't we use this time inside to actually start working on this?” My family worked on the recipe. I thought about marketing, branding, and promotion. When things started to normalize in 2021 and 2022, we spent two years iterating on what we wanted our first two flavors to be.
There's no denying that social media is an important part of growing brands, especially CPG brands. Did you think you'd need to work with influencers to get the brand out there?
I didn't get on Instagram until 2022! I never had one before then. There was one specific well-known food influencer—I've made a video about them—and I think I had a pretty terrible interaction with them. So I just thought, why don't I just start posting and stop relying on other people to shout us out? That's how I kind of landed on that.
Having lived in New York City for so long and observing the way it's changed over the last ten years, I had a longer-term vision. If I can build my own platform to market our snacks and our business, why can't I use that to try to be like the Keith Lee of New York City? Not to the extent of what he's done, but just promoting places that typically don't get promoted. Places that have been around for 30 or 40 years, whose storefront isn't super aesthetic, with Gen Z fonts. I thought that would be really cool.
You have never reached out to or responded to influencers for collabs?
Correct. I have not reached out or responded. And honestly, it's been the other way—influencers have reached out to us for samples or collabs.
When did you post your first reel skewering influencers? Was there one particular video that really launched everything?
I want to say that was around springtime last March, if my memory serves me. Before that, sales were slow but steadily growing. We were doing pop-up events to get the word out. Then in June we had hundreds and hundreds of orders come in within like two days (I don't even know the exact number), which was just crazy.
I think the inflection point was when I made a video naming who it was that influenced me to start posting videos about not liking influencer culture. When I did that and people heard the story, that's when we went from around 70,000 to over 130,000 or 140,000 followers in a week or two.
Why do you think people are so engaged and responsive to what you're doing?
In New York City it just feels like there's this need for some degree of counterculture. It's been so overwhelming in terms of the growth of these NYC-based influencers with millions of followers, just drowning in brand deals. I think people have felt the need to push back on it for a while.
You nail that restaurant influencer voice so well. Why do you think these accounts are as successful as they are, even if you punch holes in what they're doing?
I think for a lot of the NYC influencers, their content doesn't connect super well with people who actually live here—but it can connect really well with people who aspire to live here. There was this article about how this has been a very mechanical way of repurposing the whole Carrie Bradshaw thing, selling people on a manicured, aspirational idea of being a West Village girl. New York doesn't need influencers to find great food.
You've accidentally become a content creator/influencer. Do you think there's a difference between the two, or are they one and the same?
To me, an influencer’s content basically just revolves around a perpetual cycle of brand deals, which they then market to their viewers, which then propels them to get more brand deals, and so on. Honestly, I feel like because we've been on this ridiculous post-COVID run. Beauty brands have so much money, and a lot of these CPG brands have scaled so fast—it's just been unchecked. People haven't had to put in the effort.
I make it a point to never go anywhere that DMs me and asks me to review their stuff. It's crazy some of the stuff you get offered once you build any kind of following. But I've never taken PR, never taken free stuff. I'm very clear about where I stand on all that.
When do you decide to make a response video? Is it just a gut thing, like something's annoyed you enough?
I'm very opinionated, and I legitimately feel like I'm right. I pick up my phone, stop everything I'm doing, and record my 30-second video in my office chair in the same crappy apartment lighting.